


rosé wine

by mosttroubledbird (howlikeagod)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Honeymoon, M/M, Rose!verse, Weddings, [shakes fist] darn you tag wranglers for doing your jobs so thoroughly and well!, anyway here's some married thieves, canon typical...guns, fanon characters who are terrible and i love them, they're married! they do crimes! in space!, yes i'm making that a tag since the duke & dahlia tags reroute to peter and juno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-02-20 02:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13137300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlikeagod/pseuds/mosttroubledbird
Summary: A wedding, and after.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> what's up it's ya girl sarah fresh off finals with a lot of stress to work out. let's see what these doubly fictional characters are up to!

Even to Duke’s sensibilities, the wedding is a lavish affair.

Of course it is; the Roses are involved, after all—a baker’s dozen matriarchs, patriarchs, and others who have done questionable things to make money and worse things to keep it, stretching back unknown crime-ridden generations. Dahlia’s clan know how to throw a shindig, too; they’ve been polishing red-brown stains off decor from convenient estate sales and filing away serial numbers for the last few months to make certain everything has that perfect shine. 

They’re so dedicated to giving Dahlia the perfect wedding. It’s been heartwarming to watch, exactly the kind of family Duke always hoped to marry into.

Duke tweaks his bow tie and slicks a stray hair back into its rightful position. The mirror is gilded with real fool’s gold, all the way from Earth. It’s one of the many not-so-little luxuries he’s become accustomed to in making a life with Dahlia. Dahlia himself being the greatest of them, no question about that— But a man could get used to old-money flair like this.

_Dahlia._ The enormity of where Duke is and what he’s about to do fills his lungs to bursting. He can’t help the giggle that spills out of him, and when he catches sight of himself in the mirror he looks punch-drunk and witless.

Well. A man is allowed some whimsy, is he not, on his wedding day?

Duke winks at his reflection, levels that devastating smile at himself that won Dahlia’s heart years ago (as Duke has always secretly believed. Dahlia would deny it, if he asked, but it’s certainly true nonetheless), and fiddles with his cufflinks a bit.

“Duke Rose,” he trills in the mirror. He likes the way it looks on his mouth, the way it sounds. “Yes, hello, my name is Duke _Rose.”_ It rather trips off the tongue.

He waltzes around the small dressing room, holding a hand out to invisible acquaintances.

“Yes, _Rose.”_ Shoulders back and nose turned up, like Dahlia’s uncles do it. “My husband’s family, you know them? Of course you do.”

“Duke?”

Duke jumps a foot in the air with a small yelp. There’s a knock at the door, and the voice he recognizes as belonging to Dahlia’s aunt Chrys comes again.

“Duke, honey, are you ready in there?”

“Y- Yes, thank you! Just, uh, practicing my vows! Haha,” he warbles through clenched teeth.

“Such a sweetheart. You have another two minutes!” Duke can hear the smile in her voice as she walks away. “Make sure your fly is up!”

Duke glances down frantically, until he remembers that he’s wearing a skirt.

“Right, yes.” He wrings his hands, thumb tracing over the bare skin on his ring finger. He paces, checks his teeth, putters around the room for one minute and fifty-two seconds until the muffled sound of music reaches him.

There is a quiet knock, and Chrys opens the door with a smile. She’ll be walking him down the aisle, as the only one of Dahlia’s relatives anywhere near Duke’s height. _Uncle Yarrow loves symmetry,_ Dahlia wouldn’t stop saying.

Duke doesn’t mind; reorganizing a wedding party for the sake of aesthetics is something he can respect. And besides, it’s not as if any of his own family are here to do it instead.

Chrys’ hand is warm on Duke’s shoulder, even through his jacket, as they make their way to the ornate doors. The music swells on the other side, easily audible through synth-wood. The song is one of Dahlia’s favorites, if he remembers correctly: a sonata from the 33rd century. The memory of Dahlia’s face the first time he played it for Duke—softened by candlelight and a glass and a half of wine, a blooming thing in Duke’s chest he didn’t have the words to name yet back then—melts away the tremble in his hands.

“I love him so much,” Duke whispers to Chrys. 

It feels like a very important thing to say, in this moment, and Duke is in the habit of saying important things when he thinks of them. Most of those important things are about Dahlia. Like now, when he’s getting ready to say his vows and can hardly breathe for how in love he is.

“I know, hon.” Chrys gives him an enormous grin as she pushes the door open.

Duke walks up the aisle along the rows of Dahlia’s guests: relatives and family friends and more relatives and more relatives. On the opposite side, along the rows of _Duke’s_ guests (old friends from heists gone well and jobs gone poorly, dozens of friends who would go to the edge of the galaxy for him), he knows Dahlia’s mother Aster is escorting Dahlia. He keeps his eyes front rather than seek out his fiance over the heads of the seated guests; Duke is not a man to deny himself instant gratification, but they say seeing one’s partner before you both reach the stage is bad luck. And if there is one thing Duke has built a career on, luck is it.

He steps up onto the raised platform, turns, and sees Dahlia.

Duke’s heart jumps in his chest at the sight: Dahlia’s dress frames his shoulders, his hips, the slope of his calf where the skirt is higher on one side. There is glitter in his lipstick and diamonds in his hair and Duke is _smitten_ in the oldest sense of the word.

He smiles, and his stomach lurches when Dahlia doesn’t smile back. There’s something hard in his eyes—not anger, not exactly, and Duke is more confused than afraid until his eyes drift past Dahlia to the section for his own guests.

Where Duke had expected a full roster of accomplished criminals from across the Outer Rim, he sees long stretches of empty benches between three—he counts again, as if a mistake in mathematics is to blame here, _three—_ familiar faces looking back.

None of them even sat in the front row.

Duke’s right cufflink scratches against the sensitive skin of his inner wrist; that’s the only reason he notices how much he’s been fiddling with it. His hands are trembling again.

A warm set of fingers closes over his right hand, and Duke’s attention snaps back to Dahlia. The hard gleam in Dahlia’s eyes, bright as the edge of a knife, grounds him. There’s purpose there, and the possessive streak Dahlia never even tries to hide when someone else looks a little too long at Duke. 

He steps forward sharply, face rocketing toward Duke’s like a meteoroid, other hand curling around Duke’s neck, and kisses him hard on the mouth. This isn’t the usual order of things, as far as Duke knows, but he’ll take it gladly.

The kiss is far from chaste. Duke can taste Dahlia’s expensive lipstick; the tiny granules of glitter rub over his lips as Dahlia coaxes Duke’s mouth open. His tongue flicks against Duke’s teeth, slides against his tongue, warm and soft and familiar. Duke’s hands are at Dahlia’s waist, however they got there, and he leans into him as if they’re trying to melt into each other.

It’s perfect, a moment of passion and love that Duke had always hoped his wedding might be. He pulls Dahlia closer, kisses him deeper, lets himself be pulled down and—

The officiant clears her throat. From the sound of it, not for the first time.

Duke and Dahlia pull apart. Duke feels frazzled and off balance, but Dahlia only looks pleased with himself. That smirk puts thoughts in Duke’s head at the most innocuous of times; in this moment, he goes a little weak at the knees.

“Are you prepared to give your vows?” the officiant asks with one eyebrow raised. Dahlia nods. It takes Duke a moment to catch up, but once he does he nods so vigorously he worries he’ll strain his neck.

Dahlia’s vows are straight and to the purpose. He’s not a verbose lady, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he says what he means. And what he means, what sends warmth flooding through Duke’s every vein and artery, is an honest declaration of love and the intent to stay with Duke for the rest of his life. The thought of those empty benches just outside his line of sight fades; all that matters is Dahlia’s face, frank and open in a rare moment of vulnerability that has gotten less and less rare as Duke has learned the intricacies of his silences.

He finishes to wild cheers and theatrical sniffles from his rows and rows of family, and then it’s Duke’s turn.

Dahlia made him cut the length of his vows down to five pages, but he has a running bullet-list in his head of several quick things he needs to tack on. They shouldn’t make the whole thing more than, say, twice as long, but that’s still a fair chunk shorter than his first draft so really Dahlia can’t be angry with him about that. 

“Dahlia,” Duke begins, but the moment he opens his mouth the realization hits that he is about to get choked up and cry at his own wedding—a wonderfully romantic concept, but if he cries it will be harder to make it through the poem he wrote; tone and timing are key, after all. He presses on, still holding Dahlia’s hand. “Ever since the first moment I saw you—”

“Alright, that’s enough of that,” shouts a loud voice from the gathered guests. 

Duke turns, affronted and poised to make the point that if there’s _anywhere_ he ought to be allowed to expound about how much he loves Dahlia it should be their marriage ceremony, but the words die in his mouth.

Galileo Byrd, a fence from Proxima, is one of the three people who accepted Duke’s wedding invitation. He’s vain and prone to hiking his prices at inconvenient times, but reliable and a good drinking partner. He is also, apparently, in attendance for more than just well-wishes; in his hand is a gun the size of his forearm pointed straight at Duke.

“I’ve been waiting to do this a long time, you two-bit crook.” His finger moves to the trigger. “At least you got a chance to kiss your pretty partner one more time. Nothing persona—”

He doesn’t get to finish. The sound of a laser shot rings through the room in the millisecond before Byrd seizes up, suddenly silenced, and drops to the floor. A foot in front of Duke, Chrys tucks a blaster back into the holster under her dress.

“You’d think he’d do a little research first, huh?” She comments. “Picked the wrong family to mess with.” Chrys nods across the stage, and two Rose relatives—Dahlia’s sister Zinnia and cousin Mari—catch Byrd’s body under the shoulders and haul him out of sight.

Duke watches them go, mouth agape, a little lost once again. Lost, that is, until he hears Dahlia’s voice:

“Well? What the hell are you waiting for?” Duke meets his eyes again, warm and smiling. “We’ve got all those vows of yours to get through.”

Which is just about the moment when Duke bursts into tears.

—

A wedding reception in most parts of the Outer Rim lasts through one evening and into the following afternoon, with a stretch in between for the guests with less stamina to sleep.

It’s edging into morning, and Duke has claimed a vacant table for a moment’s rest, legs propped up on the chair next to the one he’s draped his suit jacket over, leaning an elbow on the cloth-covered tabletop. His calves are tired from nearly an entire night of dancing with his husband—his _husband!—_ and he’s pleasantly wine-giddy.

He can’t help the toothy smile that stretches his face as he watches Dahlia. 

Three of Dahlia’s smaller niblings are hanging from his arms, singing a wedding song from Neptune their dad taught them earlier. Tansy, three-and-two-quarters years old and insistent that Duke remember this specific number, dangles off the ground. The toes of her shoes skim the polished synthwood floor as Dahlia spins them all around to the beat of the band.

A soft smile spreads across Dahlia’s face like ink in water. He catches Duke’s eye for a moment, a moment hung suspended in a silent peace, and leans down so Tansy can climb onto his shoulders. They all sway to the music until the song winds down and Zinnia comes to collect Cosmo—six, a big kid, or so they informed Duke—who clutches Dahlia’s leg and can only be lured away by the promise of getting to pop one more confetti popper before bed.

Tansy leans down to whisper something in Dahlia’s ear. She’s looking straight at Duke as she does it, and soon Dahlia’s eyes follow. He grins again. This grin is a crooked quirk of the mouth, the edges of his teeth, a tight grip on Duke’s heart.

Tansy wriggles off Dahlia’s shoulders and he sets her down gently. He gives her a pat to the head on top of the enormous silver bow tied in her hair.

“A young lady reminded me we’re married,” he says when he reaches Duke.

“I hadn’t forgotten,” Duke replies. “Had you?”

“Nah.” Dahlia looks away for half a moment; there’s high color in his cheeks, maybe the champagne and maybe something else. “This seat taken?”

Duke shifts his heels off the nearby chair.

“By all means.” He gestures to it chivalrously. Dahlia sits, bites his lip, and leans closer. Duke leans in too: symmetry.

“She asked me why I haven’t kissed you since the wedding,” he says. His hand finds Duke’s where it’s lying on the table.

“That’s an excellent question, Mr. Rose.” Duke raises an eyebrow. “I ought to ask myself the same thing.”

“Yeah, maybe you should. Mr. Rose.” Dahlia looks delighted at the catch in Duke’s breath when he says the name.

“We’ve both been very busy.” Duke can see individual grains of eyeshadow caught in Dahlia’s lashes, violet and silver. His eyes shine underneath them. “I had an awful lot of dancing to do.”

“Whaddya know.” Dahlia cups the side of Duke’s face. His palms are warm and rough. “So did I.”

Duke doesn’t have a chance to continue the flirtation, because Dahlia’s lips are on his. It’s like the moment a spaceshuttle becomes airborne, kissing Dahlia. Every time. There’s a swoop in his stomach and he feels his feet leave the ground, escape velocity be damned.

Somewhere a dozen feet away, Tansy Rose wanders off in search of a candy dish. They’re going to be at it for a while.

—

Dahlia clicks on the light of their room. It’s a honeymoon suite, with everything you’d expect from one: enormous bed, wide shower, balcony for watching sunsets together like in some romance stream, noise-cancelling radio signals embedded in the walls.

It’s a lovely room, probably. Dahlia is a little preoccupied.

The angle of Duke’s shoulders as he pulls their suitcases into the entryway. The curve of his neck when he flips a strand of hair out of his face. The new silver ring on his finger. The heat of his glance when he catches Dahlia staring.

Dahlia doesn’t say a word. Instead, he wraps an arm around Duke’s neck, pulls him down to a reasonable height, and kisses him like the galaxy is about to collapse in on itself. He rides the feeling of Duke’s mouth. Soft lips—like silk, like home—clever tongue, good for more than talking his way out of a sticky situation. There are hands on Dahlia’s hips and mounting, heavy breaths between them.

“Dahlia,” Duke groans against his mouth. Dahlia shushes him, gently, and pulls back to grab him by the lapels and walk him backwards to the bed—no need to push when he’s coming along so willingly. When he’ll follow Dahlia to the far reaches of space and be followed in return. No questions asked.

Dahlia lays down and Duke braces himself over him. His hair is soft under and between Dahlia’s fingers, and he arches into his touch like a cat.

“What do you want?” Dahlia murmurs. Duke’s sharp teeth bite into his lower lip, eyes heavy-lidded as he gazes down at Dahlia. He leans down and nuzzles the side of Dahlia’s face, humming happily.

“You in my mouth,” he replies, low. “Let me show you how good I can be for you. _Dahlia.”_ He sighs and runs his hands across Dahlia’s chest, stomach, hips. He turns his head and kisses across Dahlia’s fingertips and down his wrist, little points of heat on sensitive skin.

Clever fingers are gentle on Dahlia’s back as Duke unzips his dress and lets it fall away. Dahlia’s got white lace on underneath, panties and a bra; he pulls at Duke’s clothes longer, until he’s nude and smiling, kneeling in front of Dahlia on the sheets. 

Dahlia sits up, one hand braced against Duke’s chest, faces a breath apart as he hovers in the hot, electric air between their lips.

There’s a moment of breathless laughter in Dahlia’s chest as Duke bypasses his mouth, pressing his lips to the skin of Dahlia’s neck instead. He works his way down, works a hand under the edge of Dahlia’s bra to skim a thumb over his nipple—pulling a gasp from Dahlia; his back arches, hand in Duke’s hair again.

He catches the waist of Dahlia’s panties between the points of his teeth and tugs.

It works for a second. But he loses his grip on them, now an inch lower on one side. Duke blinks, furrows his brow, and tries again. He can’t quite get ahold of the lace with his teeth, not enough to pull them over the curve of Dahlia’s thigh.

“Just—” Dahlia can’t help but laugh as Duke makes another valiant attempt at pulling off his panties, now getting his tongue in the equation. “Just use your hands, oh my God.”

“If you insist,” Duke sighs. He runs his tongue along the swell of Dahlia’s cock through the lace, unexpected and wet and hot and Dahlia groans, louder than he meant to, and finally he’s free and naked from the waist down.

Duke tosses his panties to the side of the room with dramatic flair, which wins him an eye roll.

“I liked those,” Dahlia grumbles before leaning up to kiss at Duke’s neck, suck a mark there. He hasn’t been able to do that in weeks, so Duke would look put-together for the wedding, and he plans to more than make up for it during their honeymoon.

“Dahlia,” Duke pants. His fingers flex on Dahlia’s hip, and the pressure prompts Dahlia to bite down even harder. _“Ah!_ Please, love, oh—”

Duke chokes on his own voice as Dahlia’s palm trails along his jaw, fingers curled around the curve of it and thumb tracing over his mouth. Dahlia can feel the wet tip of his tongue and the soft inner skin of his lip; Duke’s breath is hot over his hand and in his ear.

The only sound in the room is breathing: Duke, fast and delicate like a hummingbird; Dahlia, deep, even. Waiting.

The moment breaks. Duke shifts back, off the end of the bed. He watches Dahlia watch him kneel on the floor, long fingers splayed against the bedspread. His ring glints in the low light.

“Dahlia.” His eyes are brighter than the ring, than the light reflecting off the mirrors around the room. Dahlia shifts closer.

He tangles a hand in Duke’s soft, dark hair and hooks a leg over his bare shoulder. He’s so warm and alive under Dahlia, and the knowledge that this man is _his,_ has been for a long time but now they’ve put a name to it—

“Mr. Rose,” Dahlia says expectantly. Duke smiles, soft and sweet as the curling, tapered tip of a frosting flower on a wedding cake.

The hand in Duke’s hair doesn’t move as he leans down and in; Dahlia doesn’t pull, doesn’t do a damn thing but sit and watch and breathe and _feel;_ feel the dexterous fingers that Duke makes a living from play over his skin; feel the heat of his mouth. His tongue dances like a flame as he pulls Dahlia deeper. His lips are red and wet and soft as anything, stretched tight around Dahlia like there’s nowhere he’d rather have them.

Dahlia’s hips shift forward occasionally, but mostly he lets Duke do the work. He braces himself against the mattress with his free hand, throws his head back with a groan.

“Duke, Duke,” he praises, “you’re doing so well. Oh, Mr. Rose—”

Duke’s face glows with it, pleasure and love. He preens under Dahlia’s voice, trails his mouth up the side of his shaft and dances his fingers down, further. There’s a warm grip at Dahlia’s balls, then pressure behind them that lights him up like neon.

Dahlia’s moans rumble through his heaving chest; he can hardly catch his breath as he lifts his head and meets Duke’s eyes again. A shiny line of spit at the corner of his mouth catches the light; Duke knows how to keep himself clean like this, and has obviously decided it’s not worth his time. Dahlia agrees. 

Couldn’t agree more, really. Couldn’t ask for anything better as his grip in Duke’s hair loosens and he caresses the side of his husband’s face.

Duke moans happily, a high note of satisfaction that moves through Dahlia like a note to break glass. He clutches at the nape of Duke’s neck, drums his heel softly against Duke’s back, groans and shouts and curls over Duke like he wants to crush them both together.

Dahlia comes, hard and drawn-out, in Duke’s mouth. He sucks in one ragged breath after another and pets his husband’s hair.

“I love you, I love you,” Duke repeats. His mouth is a mess, and Dahlia reaches out to press his thumb against it again. Duke shivers.

“Come here,” he whispers. Duke stands, lean foot after foot of skin and bone rising in front of Dahlia and laying over him. A new set of hickeys blooms on Duke’s neck under Dahlia’s ministrations as he grinds against his husband and sighs.

Duke’s voice is like a song, like this: rising and falling with the rhythm of his hips and the beat of his heart. His spine dips under Dahlia’s hand, his pulse flutters. Dahlia presses his mouth hot under Duke’s chin and gets a hand around him, squeezing generously at his cock and reveling in the way he trembles.

“Perfect. Good boy,” Dahlia gifts him with soft praises and endearments that belong to the two of them alone, together in a dimly-lit room on a resort planet facing the long stretch of the rest of their lives.

The sounds Duke makes in response rise in pitch and fall in coherence. He holds onto Dahlia like the floor is about to crumble beneath them, tense with the oncoming promise of release. Dahlia pulls away from his throat, which is flushed dark with broken blood vessels beneath the skin, and watches his face carefully. Duke watches back, keeps eye contact as long as he can until the pace and pressure of Dahlia’s hand on him draws Duke out to the breaking point that wrenches his eyes shut and his mouth wide open.

He sings with it as he spills over himself and his husband’s hand and stomach, a keen that might be Dahlia’s name and might be any number of promises or declarations. 

He’ll have time to make good on them, again and again; plenty to spare, and to waste. More than enough to burn.


	2. Chapter 2

Dahlia’s fingers dig into Duke’s scalp, gentle and sure, massaging the fragrant suds of his expensive shampoo through the soft strands of his hair. He sighs happily, and Dahlia hums in response; it’s a dance they do every now and then. The steps are familiar, all the more exhilarating for the ease with which they take them. Dahlia running his fingers through Duke’s hair—dark and smooth, sticking wetly to his skin—with one hand, reaching for the bottle he made sure to put on the small shelf before they got under the spray of water with the other.

Duke braces himself against the shower wall and spreads his legs with an eager noise.

“How do you want it, Duke?” Dahlia murmurs against his neck. Warm water drips from the curve of his lips onto Duke’s wet skin.

He shivers.

“I made the requests last night, hm?” Duke says over his shoulder, eyes throwing out light like black mica. “It’s your turn, I think.” His throat is still raw and a little hoarse.

Dahlia’s hand tightens in his hair at the fresh memory of coming in Duke’s mouth once, and again, Duke going down on him as often as Dahlia could stand to let him, for hours. He doesn’t pull, but the tension tugs softly on Duke’s scalp and he lets out a tiny sigh that Dahlia feels more than hears over the sound of the water.

“Alright,” Dahlia agrees. He lets go of the fistful of silky black hair to open the bottle and slick his fingers. 

He presses his hips to Duke’s in the meantime; not to grind against him, exactly, although the curve of his ass feels nice as ever against his cock. Dahlia presses close to his husband because he misses touching him, really, is all. 

That’s the truth of it—a lady can fuck his bridegroom’s face until his lips are red and raw as the molten crust of the moon, sleep tucked in his arms, climb into the shower with him after they’ve woken up, and still miss him for the few moments he’s pulled away. Dahlia would always rather be touching Duke. He’s had time to accept this about himself.

“We might— _ah,_ _Dahlia,_ darling—” Duke hums and sighs as Dahlia slides a finger inside him. He leans his forehead against his arm, the angular architecture of his body braced easily between Dahlia and the wall. “We might see about that free Solar breakfast later, do you— _oh_ —do you think?”

“Thought we might order in,” Dahlia says casually, working a second finger slowly into Duke. He twists his wrist and lets his fingertips dip shallowly past the rim of him, more focus on the stretch than depth. “Best guess, you won’t be up for much walking before about noon.”

Duke moans at that—theatrically, more a conscious response than an honest inflection of his body. The way he hitches his slim hips against Dahlia’s hand, though; that’s as honest as Duke gets, and he hasn’t tried to hide a thing when it’s just the two of them for years.

Dahlia runs his other hand across Duke’s back, over his shoulder blade, traces his thumb over the faint pale line of a scar from a knife Duke took for him, once. He’s always been an idiot.

Duke’s breath goes high and tight as Dahlia’s fingers slowly push deeper inside him. Dahlia leans forward and follows the path traced by his hand with his mouth; his skin is clean and warm. Water runs over his tongue as he seeks out the divot beside Duke’s neck.

The pulse of cascading water echoes in the confined space of the shower; Dahlia moves to its slow, continuous tempo, fingers deep inside his husband and lips never leaving his skin. He feels out the shape of Duke’s prostate. He works at the edges of Duke’s limits, stretching him wide as he can. Tweaking his nipples sends a shock down Duke’s spine that Dahlia can feel run through his own muscle fibers. He trembles, soft cheek lying on the wet tile wall, palms pressed flat against it. Duke parts his lips; drops of water gather there and drip down his chin.

“Harder?” Duke asks. The question is a whimper. He’s done marvelously so far, keeping his composure, but he adjusts his footing against the slick floor and his knees nearly knock together as Dahlia works his ring finger—something symbolic in that, maybe—in down to the knuckle.

“You told me it was my turn to make the requests,” Dahlia says. He sees Duke’s throat bob, neck twisted so he’s in perfect profile against the white wall. The purpling marks Dahlia bit into it last night stand out almost garishly in the bright light of the bathroom.

He wants to _ruin_ this man.

“And I don’t get to participate?” Duke whines. “Doesn’t seem sporting— _Dahlia!”_

The curve of his spine deepens violently like some force has thrown him forward. Dahlia breathes a satisfied sigh and works his fingers against Duke’s prostate again, tight little circles. He moans.

“You’re not there yet, honey,” Dahlia warns.

“Where— Where’s _there?”_ Duke’s thighs quiver. His flat kneecaps brace against the wall.

Dahlia smirks. “You’ll find out.”

Duke holds out longer than Dahlia thought he would. He’s deep in him down to the knuckle, thumb skimming soothingly over his tailbone and all the rest of his fingers insistently pressing him open. Duke can’t keep his mouth shut with how hard he’s gasping, and every time his lips part his mouth half-fills with water. It dribbles down his chin. Dahlia blinks water out of his own eyes, won’t stand for anything obscuring his vision right now.

The sound of Duke breaking apart ricochets off the walls of the room. Dahlia can feel him clenching around his fingers, biting down on his own knuckles to keep himself from begging. His nipples are sensitive when Dahlia slides a hand around Duke’s hip, up his belly, to pinch at him and play with the tender skin there.

That’s what does it, what gets Dahlia exactly what he wants: one quick squeeze of his fingertips, a hard thrust of his hand inside, and Duke’s legs give out entirely.

He slumps against Dahlia’s chest. His hands clutch abortively at the slick wall. Dahlia tightens his arm around Duke’s middle, feels the way his ribcage expands as he gulps down steamy air, and lowers him to the floor of the bathtub.

“This,” Dahlia says into the skin of his husband’s chest, pulling his hand out and slicking himself up, “is _there.”_ Dahlia sets the lube on the edge of the tub and settles between Duke’s thighs.

Duke groans. His head tilts backward until it thuds against the back of the tub; he’s a sight like this: mouth agape, throat bobbing, flushed to his sternum. Dahlia could eat him raw.

“If you wanted to have me on the floor, you only needed to ask,” Duke says breathlessly. “I’ll lay myself out wherever you like.”

Dahlia shrugs and slides his cock deep into his husband, slick and loose. Duke’s body uncoils like a spring at the pressure. He gasps again; the drops of water dotting his chest tremble with the movement.

“Or I can lay you out myself,” Dahlia counters with a sharp thrust. 

Duke moans musically, a handful of notes flowing from him and bouncing off the walls, the ceiling, the floor where Dahlia’s knees squeak against the tile when the water makes him lose his traction. Duke is splayed out, pliant, open and ready for whatever Dahlia might do to him. One of his legs dangles over the edge of the tub, twitching occasionally with the pace his husband sets as he bears down.

“I lo—love you, Dahlia, _Dahlia,”_ Duke lets loose a stream of sweet declarations as Dahlia fucks him so hard it shakes him with every movement; his sharp hip bones shift under his skin, his shoulders slide against the bathtub wall. He twitches and writhes as his husband skates his palm up Duke’s rib cage to find his nipples again.

Dahlia bends low to put his lips on Duke’s other nipple—the one he’s not currently tweaking and pinching, feeling it harden between his fingers. Duke whines; Dahlia feels it like someone flicked on a lighter in a room full of helium.

From where Dahlia braces himself against the tub, Duke reaches out with one limp hand and grasps at him. Dahlia sees this, slight movement out of the corner of his eye, and knows it like he knows himself; he grabs back at Duke’s hand, zips their fingers tight together. They clutch at each other—the one way of pushing back Duke allows himself, right now—and Dahlia sucks a bruise into his chest.

The water falls, and falls, and falls against Dahlia’s back.

The sounds pouring out of Duke, falling from his babbling lips, are familiar. Dahlia knows how close he is—and knows, with a precision he otherwise reserves for shooting and lock-picking and knowing which middle-man to manipulate, exactly what to do about it.

He sits back on his heels, grabs Duke by the hips, and gives him a piece of his mind.

“Duke,” Dahlia moans, “good _boy,_ you’re taking me so well,” and runs a finger around his hip, underneath, to feel at the place where they’re joined. Duke jolts and nearly forgets to breathe as Dahlia traces along his rim, feels his own cock disappear into his husband over and over.

“Dahlia,” seems to be the single word left in Duke’s head.

“Only say that,” Dahlia replies hoarsely. He’s losing himself by now, but that’s alright. “My name. You’ve already got the second half, so take the first. It’s yours,” Dahlia pants, staring into Duke’s wide, bright eyes, “and so am I, and you’re mine and I want you to _come.”_

Dahlia wouldn’t ever call his husband ‘obedient.’ In the first place, a dame like Dahlia Rose doesn’t have time for obedience in anybody he can’t throw away like yesterday’s evidence. And second, Duke only does what anybody tells him—even Dahlia—when he wants to. When it’s the thing his selfish compass points him toward.

Real convenient, then, that Duke’s self-interest and Dahlia’s overlap so neatly.

Duke arches, mouth wide enough Dahlia can see his molars: an open-throated smile. He lets loose a series of short, high sounds, bubbling like a laugh. Dahlia strokes a hand over his throat. Two of his fingers trail across Duke’s chin and press between his lips, and Dahlia gets exactly what he wants: Duke, making a pretty mess all over himself, vulnerable underneath him and still filled by his cock.

A couple more thrusts into Duke, trembling with aftershocks, and Dahlia pulls out. He braces his body over him—Duke, staring up at him like he’ll never want anything else, and Dahlia’s never been very good at saying it in words but the feeling is mutual—and takes himself in hand.

The sight of Duke’s long, lean body lying ravished in an inch of water and the pressure of his own palm sends sparks up and down Dahlia’s skin. He grunts and gasps; Duke leans up to kiss him just as he finishes on Duke’s stomach.

Dahlia is done in one sense, but he’s far from finished with Duke—they kiss like time is stopped. His lips are silken and quick, the slide of skin and the taste of water in his mouth impossibly smooth. Dahlia pulls back eventually, panting into Duke’s mouth and watching droplets catch in his eyelashes.

“If you don’t mind, dear,” Duke mumbles, running fingers through Dahlia’s hair, “this isn’t a very comfortable place to lay down.”

Dahlia laughs and pulls himself to his feet, offering Duke a hand up on shaky legs. He leans up to kiss him once more, arm hooked around the back of his neck. Dahlia’s other hand reaches back for the knob. He slips once, then catches it and shuts the water off.

“Convenient,” Dahlia remarks.

“Hmm?” Duke hums a questioning noise, nuzzling into Dahlia’s hair.

“I don’t think we would have had hot water for this long back home.”

Duke laughs. In the fresh quiet of the hard-walled bathroom, it rings out like bells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can i say i'm "back on my bullshit" if i never left? anyway lmk if you want to see a couple of dubiously fanon characters bone some more i'm open to suggestions


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